Kodoku
by TheUnusualLife
Summary: The Flood and the Necromorph pathogen meet… in the body of one tired Issac Clarke floating about in the abyss of space. They would have to learn to share, or die trying. (Future Alien lemons, perhaps?)
1. The Greater Scheme

**Kodoku**

_**I **_**have always wondered, what would happen if two intelligent lifeforms/virus were to meet? And if they were to do so, this story would probably be the best representation combined with my morbid curiosity and uncanny imagination.**

**Issac Clarke just so happens to be the person in my cross hairs for that kind of job.**

**The job that no one in their right mind would want to take; a host to two extraterrestrial virus that wants to upend your control and kill you.**

**I like to think of it as a… cocktail of misery introduced to the barrel of despair that is Issac Clarke after he lost both of his wives. What more could one tiny little cocktail do to that barrel?**

**Let's find out.**

* * *

'**Know God, No Fear. No God, Know Fear'**

**-Dead Space**

The Brethren Moon _laughed._

A laughter filled with the sadistic humor and glee of a billion long dead yet somehow sentient lifeforms that make up the body of the Brethren Moon as it stared, with its many eyes, at the lone figure standing on the platform before its maw. The lone figure stood tall, a whooping six feet in height, when faced against the likes of a gargantuan monster such as the Brethren Moon. They were covered from head to toe in a suit that was entirely covered with silver rib-like platings and a helmet that only had two narrow slits for the viewing pleasure of the lone figure. That suit was currently drenched with blood and the glowing narrow slits made the lone figure look all the more intimidating. But not to the Brethren Moon. Oh no. In fact, the Brethren Moon found the lone figure's intimidating stance and presence to be humorous.

The reason why?

It was because the Brethren Moon knew, that deep down, underneath all that fancy human machinery and suit, was a human. And like all humans, they were fundamentally weak in nature. It was something they cannot change as they were made this way. It would know. After all, it practically aided in remolding these humans to their current shape and form with the help of the black marker that crashed landed at what the humans called, Earth. A stupid name really, now that the Brethren Moon thought about it, naming the planet that they were currently staying on based on the most amount of surface, natural material present in that planet. It's a _wonder _these humans ever became a space-faring race, even with the aid of the black marker and itself.

That's besides the point, the moon knowing that a human was underneath that suit definitely made it a lot less intimidating to it, however, that was not what made the situation humorous to the Brethren Moon. It was humorous because the moon deeply knew who that human was. Who the person that dared to stand up against the likes of its kind was.

_Issac Clarke_.

Born on June the fifth, 2465, Issac Clarke was introduced to the world silently, unlike most human babies. He came out of his mother's womb, all bloody and caked in slime and yet he stayed silent and motionless, watching the people around him with gleaming, intelligent eyes. For a second, the doctor and nurses at the scene thought the child was dead, but when he _breathed_, they all collectively sighed in relief.

The world shook that day. To be exact, _the Brethren Moon_ shook that day, rumbling the earth just by it's psyche presence alone with the black marker, as it laid its eyes upon Issac Clarke. The Brethren Moon, before the birth of Issac Clarke, was a silent watcher and 'helper' of the human race in guiding them step by step towards space travel and mostly did not interfere directly in humanity's progress. That changed once Issac Clarke came along.

The moment he was born, the Brethren Moon sensed a disturbance in its psychic link with the black marker on Earth and when it came to check, the disturbance was traced back to one, still baby Issac Clarke. It stared at Issac Clarke and knew what this disturbance meant. There was only one other event that happened like this and it was at Tau Volantis, the place where the Brethren Moon's body resided. Encased in cold, white ice.

Tau Volantis was a planet almost similar to Earth except for the populace that resided in it was on a completely different evolutionary path to humans. They were, for lack of a better term, 'Fish people'. They had fins and webbing on all of their four limbs along with a shark-like head so as to adapt to the their environment of living underwater. Tau Volantis had more oceans than land, making it necessary for them to evolve in this particular manner. Tau Volantis like Earth also had a black marker dotting the planet's crust and this marker was what made up the intelligence of the Brethren Moon before its body was created. This single black marker, however, was of lesser intelligence without a body thus it sought out to converge the Tau Volantis populace into an intelligent species at their prime, before turning them to Necromorphs so that it may begin the convergence event to create said body for its own purposes. As the black marker did this gradually over the eons, it also had a psychic disturbance similar to what the moon was experiencing now and it linked it back to a Tau Volantian female named, Rosetta. The black marker back then ignored Rosetta, even though the psychic fluctuation was a strange anomaly to its usual routine of influencing the Tau Volantians. The black marker just dismissed it as nothing important. That proved to be its greatest mistake.

Rosetta was a prodigy hailed within its large, scientific community for the first Tau Volantian to ever solve the meaning of the inscriptions in the markers when their species discovered it.

Rosetta was a genius for inventing the usage of the markers in powering their various technology when Tau Volantis natural resources were running dangerously low.

Rosetta was a messiah to their religious community for reverse engineering the black marker to make red markers to power the species in different parts of their planet.

Rosetta.

_Rosetta._

_**Rosetta!**_

The Brethren Moon was fuming just thinking of that name. You would think that Rosetta swiftly aiding in expanding the black marker's range of control and future infection rate would help its purpose, right? Wrong! Rosetta's actions caused the black marker to start its infection ahead of its plan because the Tau Volantians were getting too advanced for its own good. All because of Rosetta. All because of her actions giving the Tau Volantians a means to further advance the technology of their race to fight against the Necromorphs. All because of one, _insignificant_ insect ruining the grander scheme of things! What made it worse was that Rosetta was the leading general against the infected, always thwarting further infection of her own species and the marker's plans to invade their species communities. When she soon realized that the markers were the cause of the infection after fighting one too many Necromorphs, she destroyed the markers that she created systematically left, right and center until only one marker remained- the black marker. The origin of all markers.

She almost destroyed it too.

_Almost._

If not for one religious fanatic that was the key shareholder of the Tau Volantians market, the marker would have been destroyed that day and lost its sentience. By luck or by chance, before Rosetta could deal the final blow to the marker, the religious fanatic used his financial prowess to hire man power to stop her and her army and to do some behind-the-scenes work to implicate Rosetta with intentions of starting the Necromorphs infection in the first place. After all, it was only the red markers that had infections occurring around it, right? Said the religious fanatic to the public as he hid the bloody hands of his men stained with the blood of the Necromorphs from moving their bodies away from the black marker. Rosetta was arrested. So was her army. Things went very smoothly from then.

The black marker was pleased with the religious fanatic for aiding it in its quest to infect the whole of his species, with the exception of Rosetta and her army, and to show its appreciation, it introduced him to a friendly Necromorph. That proceeded to shove him down its gullet and into the awaiting stomach acids to digest him alive. Ultimately, all of his species belong to the black marker and it wouldn't do it any good if it were to show favoritism towards him, would it? _Noo, that would be too selfish of it and it needed to be a good role model __to its own kind._

As for Rosetta and her army? They put up a good fight at the last of their stronghold but they were too little too few to stop the _vast_ numbers of Necromorphs that the black marker now had. Their last stand was ultimately futile and the black marker made sure to snap, dismember, break, tear and slice every piece of Rosetta's army to show her what happened when she chose to oppose it. Then it chose to kill her with a simple stab to the heart after she lost herself to despair, to mock her that she was not worth its time and effort. After all of that, it was relatively easy to hunt down the scarce few survivors around the planet and start its convergence event.

When the event began, the black marker that was the center of the new body received information from every dead body that it absorbed from the planet and it absorbed and _absorbed, greedy _for information_… _until it got to the body of one of the generals of Rosetta. She… she…. Hysterical laughter bubbled from the non-existent mouth of the black marker as it realized it got played. Rosetta was smart enough to realize that after she got captured by the religious fanatic, she could not completely end the threat of the Necromorphs. So instead, she chose to contain it. With time given to her as the black marker moved to end off the rest of her species, she built a machine that would freeze all of the black marker's kind by using the limitless energy of the black marker against itself. And her body was the key to activate said machine. More precisely, her dead body.

She invented a whole another meaning to 'over my dead body'.

The black marker laughed, laughed in despair, humor, sorrow, anger and so many other emotions at once and it continued to do so even as the machine activated and its newly formed body got frozen. It laughed and laughed and laughed for many centuries to be able to calm down from the roller coaster of emotions it experienced from just one Tau Volantian. From just one, particular _Rosetta_.

And this all brings it back to one, particular _Issac Clarke._

The same event happening twice was too much of a coincidence for the Brethren Moon to know the same thing that happened to Rosetta, was going to happen to Issac Clarke in the future. It wasn't going to make the same mistake it did back when it was just the black marker and let things succumb to fate and luck. _This time_, thought the Brethren Moon, _this time it would interfere beforehand and change things according to its plan_. So with that, the Brethren Moon started to work its influence on Issac Clarke. The Brethren Moon wanted Issac Clarke to be its new body, not this hulking mass of flesh and guts behemoth that it was. See, though the Brethren Moon considered humans to be fundamentally weak in nature, it knew that there were strengths to this weak species. For example, the superior intellect it had to all other species that allowed them to invent and create new things that would aid them in their survival, making them the prime species of their planet. This combined with the Brethren Moon's intellect of over a billion Tau Volantians and its ability to alter human flesh tissue to make it nigh indestructible, made a human body very enticing to the Brethren Moon. Adding the fact that the Brethren Moon could still be easily destroyed by conventional Tau Volantians' and human weapons as the fragile black marker was still exposed in its current, frozen form, made it sought out for a human body. And what better body than that of Issac Clarke, the man that would in the future have similar qualities of that of Rosetta, the prime sample of her own species.

Hence, it worked its magic on the life surrounding Issac Clarke. Introducing certain characteristics it liked to Issac Clarke and the things that it didn't like in a negative manner so that Issac Clarke would learn to be different from those negative characteristics. The best example of the Brethren Moon doing this is by influencing the parents of Issac Clarke; the father being a promising role model for Issac Clarke as the Brethren Moon wanted Issac Clarke to inherit and take up the mantle of an engineer so that it may create and use useful human inventions when the time comes to take over his body and the mother being a religious fanatic that would lead to the financial downfall of Issac Clarke family so that he may grow to hate religion as a whole as the Brethren Moon found religion to make a certain person of a certain species weak in both the body and mind. The financial difficulty that the mother created also lead Issac Clarke to work at Concordance Extraction Corporation (C.E.C for short) whereby the Brethren Moon manipulated the religious fanatics of the markers that worked at the C.E.C to promote and establish Issac Clarke at a position closer to the major shipping line of the C.E.C where things went according to the Brethren Moon's design.

First, was the emergency mission by the C.E.C to respond to USG Ishimura's distress signals whereby Issac Clarke participated in it to save his wife. Little did Issac Clarke know, this was his first exposure to the Necromorphs and the red markers and it was all according to the Brethren Moon's plans. From the video of Issac Clarke's wife to the distress signals, all of it was done by the Brethren Moon to lead Issac Clarke to Aegis VII where the Ishimura was. This was all done as a crucial part of the Brethren Moon's plans to introduce Issac Clarke to different variants of Necromorphs and build up his human physique by splicing a part of the Necromorphs DNA in him, without turning him of course. _That would defeat the whole purpose of raising Issac Clarke wouldn't it?_ thought the Brethren Moon. And another part of that plan was making Issac Clarke fall into despair from realizing that he had already lost his wife to the Necromorphs, this was done in order to make it easier for the take over of Issac Clarke's body as a human in emotional distress was more easily susceptible to psychic influences that would no doubt occur when the Brethren Moon decides it time to harvest its crops.

The second part of the plan occurred when Issac Clarke was captured after the events of Aegis VII and USG Ishimura, leading to the sprawl by the Church of Unitology to be experimented on to acquire blue prints of the red marker that the Brethren Moon implanted in his head. This Church of Unitology was the same religion that Issac Clarke's mom worshiped and the same religion that sought to expand the knowledge and usage of the red markers. All in the name of the Necromorphs. This drove the nail that was Issac Clarke's hate for religion deeper into the coffin when he discovered the knowledge. The next part of the plan was to force Issac Clarke to re-board the USG Ishimura so that the Brethren Moon may set the stage to influence Issac Clarke's mind and make him see visions of his dead wife. This was done in order to make him come to terms with his wife's death and find a new partner. _Hopeful isn't it?, _thought the Brethren Moon, _Pity he was going to have to experience the whole viscous cycle of losing someone again._

The Brethren Moon _laughed._

Before commencing the final part of its plan, leading Issac Clarke to Tau Volantis. Where the Brethren Moon's body resided, frozen in ice yet still sentient. Where all things began and where all things will end.

The guide to Tau Volantis begun by making the leader of the Church of Unitology chase Issac Clarke away from hiding and into the open arms of Tau Volantis with the crew of USM Eudora. With another added side benefit of rescuing his ex-wife, Ellie Langford, from the Necromorphs, can't forget that now. Once he reached Tau Volantis and went through another baptism of fighting and consequently acquiring Necromorphs' DNA, he went through another scuffle with the leader of the Church of Unitology and ended up having to take the life of a fellow human that was once dear to his Ellie Langford. This implemented the idea of 'for a greater good' in the mind of Issac Clarke and made him reunite with Ellie Langford when the leader of Church of Unitology threatened to kill her if Issac Clarke and the remaining survivor, John Carver, did not hand over the Codex to him.

Speaking of the Codex, this was a key to activate or destroy the Brethren Moon using Rosetta's machine and body to either unfreeze or use the gravitational field of the Tau Volantis to crush the body of the Brethren Moon into it. The Brethren Moon was impressed, even in death, Rosetta still managed to provide an opportunity to hinder his plans. However, that opportunity was gone once John Carver tossed the Codex to the leader of the Church of Unitology (Surprisingly, Issac Clarke refused to do this. Maybe the Brethren Moon broke him too much using its Necromorphs?) in exchange for Ellie Langford and he used the Codex to unfreeze the Brethren Moon.

The moment this was accomplished, the Brethren Moon stopped using the Necromorphs to view the events happening on the platform of Rosetta's machine and instead opted to use its many eyes to see what was going on. The Brethren Moon's first order of business, now that its body was back, was to properly impale the leader of the Church of Unitology with a piece of sharp stalactite all the way from his mouth through the other opening. Next was to ensure that no survivors left this place alive, and it meant _no one_ as it swiped the escaping ship with its many tentacles into a flaming wreck, killing Ellie Langford. This only further angered Issac Clarke and he rushed towards the open maw of the Brethren Moon. Leading to the current scene of the Brethren Moon laughing at Issac Clarke as he stood before it.

Issac Clarke removed his mask and with the intense anger behind losing both his wives said, "You can't have us."

The Brethren Moon burst out laughing again, it couldn't stop its laughter even as it fought a losing battle against Issac Clarke but it didn't matter to it. It _already_ had him, it _already_ won, there was never an us or the human race in the equation, it just wanted one Issac Clarke. The rest were all just pawns to this greater prize that it painstakingly created.

As Issac Clarke destroyed the open maw and body of the Brethren Moon, he pulled out Rosetta's machine from its gullet and used the Codex to reactivate it to destroy the Brethren Moon by crashing it into Tau Volantis. With everything finally done and John Carver being obliterated by the debris of the ensuing shock wave from the machine, Issac Clarke pulled out a photo of Ellie Langford and let himself go in between the collision of the Brethren Moon and Tau Volantis.

That was when the black marker struck.

All this time, it waited patiently in the dead body of the Brethren Moon, waiting for that one opportunity where Issac Clarke would be at his lowest both physically and mentally and when the opportunity presented itself, it launched itself from the dead body and embedded itself into the spine of Issac Clarke. As it integrated itself into Issac Clarke's body, it suddenly realized that Issac Clarke, as a human, needed oxygen to keep its body alive and with the hole in the spinal cord of the suit, oxygen was escaping fast. This caused the black marker to act swiftly and rapidly transform some of Issac Clarke's human tissue to form a hard, bony carapace around the opening using the Brute Necromorph DNA and, for added protection, expand the bony carapace and interlocked it with the rest of the armor that Issac Clarke wore. This proved to be lucky for the black marker as not too soon after, debris from the crashed Brethren Moon, collided and knocked Issac Clarke far off from the stratosphere and into the vacuum of space.

Everything was done and the black marker could now rest in the body of Issac Clarke to gather its energy to fully take over his consciousness and body. Unlike what most people would believe, the black marker needed rest sometimes when it strained itself, even when it was coined to be 'limitless' in energy.

Hence it hibernated, it could afford to wait as there was nothing now that could stop it from taking over Issac Clarke's body.

Patience is the key to success and it will wait before reaping its rewards.

* * *

_**And**_** cut! **

**That's a wrap folks and for those fans of my other work Apprentice of Hidan, this is another series that I will be continuing along with AOH. Not to worry, I will not stop updating AOH but it may take some time before I garner back interest for that failed piece of writing. (Cough, foundation, cough)**

**As always, thank you for giving this story a chance and I hope you enjoyed it! I will see you in the next chapter.**


	2. Growing Tired

**Kodoku**

_**I**_** do not know what overcame me when I started writing out the first chapter of this story. Perhaps it was the need to do something different? Perhaps it was the order that I so sought out for in my stories? Perhaps both.**

**I cannot say for certain but I am liking these two franchises that I had used my free time to delve into. They are fascinating, to say the least.**

**Alas, I will not take up much of your time and I will try to make this chapter as short and sweet as possible.**

**Just like every other chapters and stories I had the joy of publishing****.**

* * *

"**I was perfectly calm and perfectly insane, perfectly prepared to accept what the moment had offered. Indifference of that magnitude is rare and because it can be achieved only by someone ready to let go of who he is, it demands respect. It inspires awe in those who gaze upon it."  
― Paul Auster, The Book of Illusions **

"What do you think is worse, Buckell? Dying along with everyone else or being the only one who survives?"

"It's not the_ dying_ that scares me, Issac. It's not making a difference before I do."

Issac Clarke remembered that conversation.

He remembered that conversation as if it was just yesterday, where he and Buckell were having the conversation on the intricacies of the meaning of death to each other. Back then, as he was cutting the power from the Environmental, he did not understand what Buckell had meant. His mind was filled with the thoughts of being together with his ex-wife, Ellie Langford, that he had dismissed the idea of 'going out on his own terms' entirely from his mind.

And could you blame him?

Back on the USG Ishimura, back where it all started, Issac Clarke had experienced what it was truly like to be alone. He had landed on that ship with hopes of getting out of there with his wife, Nicole Brennan, but he came out empty-handed and with nary of a crew left when he first got there. Not a hair, not even a _single_ cell of his wife could possibly be found in there, what with the entire place festering with Necromorphs and all that. Those wretched creatures probably ate her when she committed suicide and turned her into living, pulsating biomass, or worse, turned her into one of them. And didn't that just sounded awful? That he could have shot one of the several Necromorphs in his quest from escaping the USG Ishimura, not knowing that the Necromorph was his wife.

Issac Clarke _shivered_ in space. The sub-zero temperature doing nothing to him that such a significant knowledge could, it sent shivers down his spine just thinking about it.

Even if it was justifiable self-defense at that point, he knew he would never forgive himself if he had the knowledge that one of the Necromorphs that he had pointed his gun at was his ever, beautiful long-dead wife. Torn and changed into one of the many hideous, walking carcasses on USG Ishimura. So he tried to move on, tried not to think about his dead wife, tried not to think about his dead crew. He tried to forget. Really, he did. But every time he closed his eyes, he saw the _disgusting_, nightmarish form of his dead wife; a cross between human and Necromorph, staring at him with her white, milky eyes. Blaming him for not arriving earlier, blaming him for being a useless, _useless_ human being, blaming _him_ for causing the death of his entire crew by insisting on going on the mission. Judging him! Him!

_Stop!_

_Messing!_

_With!_

_My!_

_**Head!**_

Issac Clarke had thought as he slammed his head on the escape pod controls in tandem with the hopes of getting out of the red marker's influence. He was sure then that it was still affecting him, sinking its many invisible hooks into his brain to never let him go, as he saw the red marker symbols following his hallucinations around. Even when it was buried six feet underneath piles of rocks, it still persistently kept its grip on him.

He banged his head until blood dribbled down the entire front of his face and yet…, the hallucinations never stopped. He still heard from them, saw them, _feel_ them as he floated around in space in his escape pod, waiting for rescue. And wasn't it just _fascinating_, that the brain could get so disillusioned to the point that it starts making its own decision in what it can feel and perceive as reality, even if it may be fake? Issac Clarke thought so..., if it wasn't happening to him at that point in time.

Luckily, he got rescued before he went batshit insane from staying in the escape pod for too long with his delusions.

Unluckily, the state in which he was rescued from made the rescuers deduce him as such as blood was caking his face and he was talking to himself. Or 'Nicole Brennen' as he so stated to his rescuers while pointing to an empty corner of the escape pod later on. The rescuers stared at him incredulously, that did not help his case.

He was sent to the Sprawl's many mental asylums. If his experience in the escape pod was hell, this was the beginning of his purgatory. Left and right, everywhere he turned, he saw people screaming to themselves, whispering to themselves, clinging to themselves. All the while worshiping a god he did not know of with a group of people that called themselves the Church of Unitology. He was forced to join the rest of the people in the asylum in worshiping the god of this church. At first, he did not resist, partly because he knew that religion can be healing to the mind of those in need, even if he may have perceived it as bad due to less than stellar past experiences, and partly because he needed something to drown out the voices of his delusions of his dead wife. But when he found out that the so called 'god' they were worshiping was the red marker? He_ snapped._

He was dragged away from the church that day, screaming and kicking up a fuss.

"Stop this! Stop this at once!"

He had said.

"That's not a god!" he said as he pointed a trembling finger at a picture of a red marker, "Heed my word for I have seen what it can do! It changes you! Breaks you down into something you are not… Monsters! Monsters, I tell you!"

They looked at him as if _he_ was the crazy one out of the bunch. He would prove them wrong once they let him go. Pity he never got the chance as he fell asleep.

_For three years._

Once he woke back up, things devolved into chaos immediately. He was in a straight jacket, a man was in front of him, trying to talk to him through the mind numbing haze he was experiencing. Then there was a spike that went through his chest, he looked at Issac, Issac looked at him and he _changed_. Bones cracked and extended with a malleability never before seen in humans and they formed two sharp bony blades that broke away from the skin of his shoulders. That was all the warning Issac Clarke needed to know what was happening and he headbutted the man, or was it Necromorph now, and ran the hell out of there. _Issac Clarke_, the one that was back in USG Ishimura, woke up that day and blazed through Sprawl with friends and foes alike as his memories in Sprawl returned back to him. Some friends turned out to be wolves in sheeps' clothing and some unlikely enemies turned out to be friends. What a weird world he lived in. But that was besides the point, the point was he met Ellie Langford there that day.

_Ellie Langford._

Introduced to him while being held at gunpoint, jittery and full of nerves. She didn't trust anyone; not that he would blame her after just going through a betrayal in the hands of one of the members of the Church of Unitology, but she nevertheless still worked with him. Someone who was more paranoid of company then she was and surprisingly they both got along like meeting rivers. They walked through the flames of screaming Necromorphs and Church of Unitology members and came out bruised and battered at the other side but still in one piece. And ultimately together, that was the most important part. _That was probably when I fell in love with her, _Issac Clarke mused as he floated about in zero-gravity.

However, despite all that, they were never meant to be. Issac Clarke still suffered from PTSD of the events in Sprawl and USG Ishimura and it affected their relationship severely. Ellie Langford was also partly to blame for their departure, she was only ever truly in love with the battle-hardened side of Issac Clarke and she didn't realize that until they had settled down in a peaceful area. Once all that ended? She rapidly lost her feelings for Issac Clarke and moved onto someone that could get her genuinely excited, not once looking back to help fix the broken man that was Issac Clarke. Taking the heart that he fought so hard to open up for her by fighting against an apparition of his long dead wife, and squashing it beneath her feet.

Then Tau Volantis happened.

And Ellie Langford started to find Issac Clarke interesting again.

Issac Clarke was no fool, he realized this once he started getting back in contact with Ellie Langford on Tau Volantis and shutting down the power from Elemental was one of the events that dawned this new revelation on him. The way her eyes always lingered on his injuries, never his face, and how she shivered when he came back from occasional encounters with the Necromorphs. Those eyes were full of lust for the man that Issac Clarke didn't want to be and was only there out of necessity. And to think he came here just to solely rescue _her _because he blamed himself that he couldn't even keep his loved ones out of trouble, even in hiding.

Now?

Now he was 40 years too old to be dealing with this shit and he locked his heart behind steel walls the size of the Hive Mind Necromorph. Never again, he promised to himself as he destroyed the key to his heart. And as he fought Necromorphs in his whole adventure at Tau Volantis, he found he finally had space in his mind to contemplate the words of Buckell. After all, with death being a close reminder in the form of the Necromorphs around him, how could he not think about the conversation he and Buckell had.

He pondered and pondered.

Never reaching an answer until at the very end when he drove the Codex into the Tau Volantis machine to destroy the Brethren Moon. That was when he finally understood what it meant to go out on his own terms.

But by then, it was already too late.

He didn't go out on his own terms.

The black marker made sure of that.

Oh, he _knew_ now. He _knew_ when the black marker had decided to embed itself into his back and shared its memories of its experience with him. Whether that was intentional or not, it got the message across. That he was nothing but a pawn in their game, a means to an end, a puppet to a puppeteer. That everything he did, from start to finish in this game of his called life, was all for naught.

Because he never really did them.

It was all just an act that the black marker pulled to quietly manipulate him, while silently laughing in the background at what he assumed to be his version of 'reality'.

And when Issac Clarke found this out while floating about in space, he _raged. _He flung his arms about and reached back to try to claw at the black marker that was deep in his back, but his efforts were rewarded with broken bones and nails as his fists met hard Necromorph bone. The pain flared from his hands but even then as he did his act, the broken parts of his hands healed up with the effect of the Necromorph pathogen in his body. As if the black marker, even when asleep in his spine, was laughing at his futile attempts to resist. That only fueled his anger even more and he tried to find various ways to kill himself so that the black marker cannot have him. However, every attempt was met with failure when his bare hands proved to be unable to get through the reinforced Necromorph bone that felt harder than a goat's knee. Throughout all of this, Issac Clarke felt the black marker only barely stirred from the physical harm he was trying to do to himself. If only he had his 211-V Plasma Cutter, he would not have hesitated in pointing it at his own head and shooting himself, sadly, it was floating about god knows where in space when he let it go in the collision at Tau Volantis.

Then what?

_Then what would that achieve_, Issac Clarke thought, _cause you are forgetting that the whole idea of Necromorphs is that they thrive with bodies dead or alive. __And what you are doing serves no purpose._

That thought doused a bucket full of cold water on the raging flames burning deep inside Issac Clarke and it extinguished it completely, and all of a sudden Issac Clarke was all but tired, lying in the ashes of a once bright flame. Like the universe had drained Issac Clarke for everything that he had. Because in a manner of speaking, it had. Because the universe, in a cruel fashion, had taken away everything and everyone he ever loved by playing matchmaker and introducing him to a cruel extraterrestrial species. Because he had tried, and tried, and tried throughout his lifetime but when he discovered now that everything he did with _his_ effort was all for nothing? He was _tired __of trying__. _He was _spent_. And he was ready to just lie down and give up because the black marker had won. It had won in _everything _from the get go. Checkmate. Ace. _**Everything.**_

Issac Clarke closed his weary eyes and was ready to except death whenever it came or when the black marker kindly chose to wake up and end him.

As he waited, his thoughts drifted to the conversation he had with Buckell. He now _envied _Buckell, wish he had went out the same way Buckell did, because in a way, he did make a difference in and when he chose to freeze to death and die out there in the cold grounds as a last act to give everyone a suit to wear against the cold elements. He was also dying of a wound he received from a Necromorph so at the very least, he could die freezing up knowing that he couldn't harm anyone when he turned. Poor bastard probably knew that there was a heating generator next door but refused to turn it up in light of his infected injury.

He wished he had a chance like that to go out on his own terms. Maybe if he wished hard enough, it would be gran-

A light flashed outside his suit, bright enough that Issac Clarke could make it out behind the darkness of his closed eyelids.

_What was that?_ Curious, Issac Clarke opened his eyes.

And blinked.

And blinked again.

Because for all the marbles in the world, nay, the _universe, _he could not tell if that was a humongous spaceship hovering right in front of him.

She was a magnificent thing; a Phoenix-class military carrier that he recognized from his time in the CEC that sported 6 Jupiter-1 maneuvering engines and two smaller engines that was even larger than USG Ishimura itself, a ship that had multiple, _massive_ collection bays that could each hold many blue whales found back in Earth. That was pretty telling of how big the ship was. Even more amazing was the armament of the beauty; she had 3 22B6R MACs, 10 11A2R1 naval coilgun batteries, 24 M42 Archer Missle Pods, 40 M800 Rampart point defense guns, 22 or more deck guns and an ATAF Missile turret. The nerd in Issac Clarke squealed in delight and did an estimation in his head that if this ship fired even a quarter of its armament at Tau Volantis, it would obliterate everything that was in the planet. The person who constructed or came up with the blueprints for this baby definitely made this ship with the intention of pure, unadulterated destruction in mind. Against who or what he did not know, but he pitied the poor fool who decided to go against this ship.

But for all the fascinating things this spaceship carrier held, Issac Clarke could not ignore the glaring damages it had. For one, one of its massive Jupiter-1 engines was badly damaged, the parts were all strewn about and floating around in space and it looked as if it just narrowly avoided being vanished from the face of the universe by a supernova. Another clue was that the ship itself had indents on the hull that seemed to be coming from the inside of the ship and undulating red moss-like things covering the whole hull of the ship.

Wait a minute…, undulating red moss-like things?

He had a suspicion that he knew what it was and he needed to confirm it with his own eyes. Otherwise, he would die of curiosity by the nature of the nerd inside of him and that was a fate worse than what the black marker did to him. He activated the jet boosters on his feet and palms and boosted himself to the spaceship carrier. Mid-way through his flight, the fuel on all of his jet boosters ran out but he still had the momentum necessary from Newton's laws of motion to carry on his journey to the ship. As he got closer, he noticed that the red moss-like things were in fact translucent and he could see what he assumed to be blood or the life-giving substance of the organism flowing around in there, it was almost as if the whole hull of the spaceship was alive. An organic spaceship that functioned off of the organs of this organism and Issac Clarke had a funny feeling that he knew what it was.

Issac Clarke guessed that this was the Necromorphs doing as he only ever encountered these parasitic organisms before in that fleshy form and was angry at another loss of fellow human lives to these creatures. This ship's crew didn't deserve what was coming to them. They had probably warped to another part of the galaxy in a last ditch attempt to get help but it most likely failed due to the destroyed engine that he saw. That would explain the sudden flash of bright lights that usually accompanied a ship warp. When he landed on the ship's hull, he activated the magnetic soles of his feet and hands and stuck onto the ship like a spider. He decided then and there that if he was going to die by turning into one of the Necromorphs per proxy of the black marker, he would go out killing as many of its kind as it could. An eye for an eye and the fire within Issac Clarke raged once more as he reignited the ashes. He was tired of being tired and he would try one last time to at least make his own ending when his manipulator was asleep. Maybe there might be some crew members that were still alive in this ship and he might be able to rid them of these horrendous creatures and save them in the process. A tiny chance that he was willing to take once it was presented to him as a prospect for his wish to be fulfilled. To go out on his _own_ terms.

His first priority in his crusade to wipe out the Necromorphs on board the ship and save survivors along the way, was to head to the middle of the ship and get a weapon. The middle of all space ships, especially military space ships, had equipment necessary for their expedition. From repair tools to basic standard military grade machine guns, everything was found in the middle because it was the most heavily reinforced part of the ship. In the event that the ship was under attack, there would be lesser chance of losing the crucial equipment cache to an explosion. He crawled along the hull of the spaceship to get closer to the middle and he avoided the undulating flesh of whatever the creature was on his way there. He was almost there when he noticed that the next narrow stretch of pathway was completely blocked by the undulating flesh, thus he had no choice but to crawl on top of it. The undulating flesh was soft to the touch and pulsated every so often underneath his magnetic grips and if Issac Clarke wasn't in space, he was sure he would have definitely heard a squish sound with every step that he took. Issac Clarke grimaced but he bared with it and continued forward, this was nothing compared to the creatures he had to face on the daily.

When he was about to get back to the non-fleshy part of the ship, Issac Clarke felt a nudge at his feet. Before he could look down, Issac Clarke suddenly found himself floating back in space with something tethering him from being flung too far back.

"Eh?", Issac Clarke couldn't help but utter a surprised sound as he didn't know what just happened.

He looked down and found that the something was a large tentacle poking out of the undulating flesh and it was currently wrapped tightly around his feet. He could feel the intense pressure from the tentacle even under the thick Necromorph bone armor, and he feared that it would give out and crush his legs. Fortunately, it didn't but that was not the purpose of the tentacle, in the next second, Issac Clarke felt a sharp tug at his legs. He was pulled rapidly downwards by the tentacle to presumably smash his body onto the fleshy organism and he braced for impact, but, it never came. Instead, he was pulled _into_ the fleshy organism.

_Fuck! Not good!, _Issac Clarke had one too many experiences being swallowed by giant Necromorphs to know where this was going. He struggled against the fleshy confines and with the tentacle's grip on his feet but to no avail and he was sent barreling even faster downwards for his efforts. Soon, he hit the metallic deck of the space ship with a loud thud, contrary to his expectations of being pulled into a digestive tract of a certain Leviathan Necromorph.

Issac Clarke groaned and griped his helmet with both hands as the impact with the metallic deck shook his head around like a battering ram in his helmet. He wanted to just lay there for a moment to get his act back together, however, he heard an inhumane growl coming from his front. Issac Clarke sprung to his feet, ready to go fist-to-cuffs with the Necromorph in front of him. Initially, he would have never considered such an absurd idea of fighting close combat with a deadly species like the Necromorphs who _excelled_ in close-combat, but due to recent circumstances that gave him a Brute Necromorph bone armor, he was confident he could win. Besides, he could just go back to his roots of stomping on Necromorphs to crush them beneath his feet if worse comes to worse. It was highly effective as far as he was concerned.

With arms raised and feet spread apart, Issac Clarke was ready to engage the Necromorph. He looked carefully at the Necromorph to see what variant it was so that he may adapt his hand-to-hand combat skills around it but sadly, this time around his knowledge of Necromorphs proved to be useless in this encounter. That was because what stood in front of him was no Necromorph, it couldn't possibly be a Necromorph. No, what stood before him was a Flood Combat Form that had him staring down the barrel of a battle rifle, bony fingers at the trigger, ready to fire.

Issac Clarke hands fell to his sides. Even he recognized that the creature before him was no Necromorph. Sure the creature had similar body horror aspects to most Necromorphs but that was where the similarities ended; it had tentacles with red filaments at the end that sprouted out of the human host's chest that was completely unlike a Necromorph and moreover, most of the human host's body structure was still intact, something that Necromorphs would never do when turning a human host. They tend to make _full use_ of the human body parts. Another glaring difference that told Issac Clarke that this creature was definitely not a Necromorph was _how_ it was using a human weapon! While it was true that Issac Clarke had met Necromorph variants like the Creeper and Shambler that used firearms, they usually had poor aim due to their bad posture. But this creature? This creature was taking up the standard military pose when using a battle rifle and it was even looking down the sights to take aim at him.

This creature was _intelligent._

Immediately Issac Clarke felt a rush of negative emotions go through him. Dread, fear, despair and frustration all at once as he realized that there was another parasitic life form that was similar to the Necromorphs. Perhaps, an even more advanced life form then what he was playing host to. His thoughts started to delve into the horrible possibilities that may arise from this new information but of course the creature didn't give him time to do that, why would it? It's job was to kill and infect the host in front of it under the orders of its' master.

So it fired.

A standard M634 round coming out of the barrel and striking the Brute armored plating covering the helmet of Issac Clarke. The round ripped off the entirety of the Brute armor and if it wasn't there in the first place, Issac Clarke's helmet and head would have been shot clean off.

Issac Clarke's battle instincts kicked in as he saw his potential death. He didn't give the creature another chance to fire at it as he tackled the creature in the chest and knocked the both of them to the ground. For some time he wrestled with the creature for control of the gun while simultaneously dodging the large bony left arm of the creature. Once he got the gun free from the creature's grasp, he immediately turned the barrel to the red filaments sticking out of the creature and fired. Swiftly identifying the creature's prominent weakness and ending it.

Once the scuffle was over, Issac Clarke fell to the ground right beside the dead creature and stayed there. He wasn't injured, just exhausted and he didn't know if he wanted to get up to continue his intended crusade as he had too much on his plate right now with the information he had gotten from just this brief encounter. He now had to deal with potentially unraveling another parasitic life form in his crusade on this space ship while already dealing with one that was _inside_ of him. He wouldn't be able to take it. He was already breaking down as it is from the Necromorphs, how in seven heavens was he going to handle the knowledge of two parasitic life forms?

And then an idea _hit_ him.

An idea so insane and so profoundly ludicrous that if the people in the Sprawl asylums were still alive, they would declare him a basket case.

Maybe he had lost his marbles. Maybe he was not all there after the incident with the black marker. Maybe he was off his rockers. But he actually found the idea he had quite tempting.

The idea was that he would infect himself with this new parasitic life form to make sure that they would both duke it out to see which life form was superior. Seeing as how he already had the 'brains' of the Necromorph within him, this would be quite easy to achieve. The black marker wanted to have his body? Will he/it can have it! Just with an added side bonus of a squatter living with it. This would also help him achieve in destroying both parasites at once or most of their life forms and let the survivors in this space ship have a better chance of wiping out the parasitic life forms while they kill each other.

After all, what was one man compared to more than a dozen parasitic life forms.

And to start off this plan, all he needed was something to infect himself with the other species' parasites. He stared at the dead creature's body and started to have second thoughts about this plan…

_No!_, Issac Clarke convinced himself, _It is now or never! You have one chance to change this, besides this will ensure that you can at least go on to the afterlife without the pain of transforming into a Necromorph._

And this was the other factor that Issac Clarke was banking on, that he would die without having to suffer anymore in this universe. He was really tired and he couldn't muster in himself the strength to keep on living now that all the people at his side was dead. He wanted to meet them, all of them, as he missed their company. Even Ellie whom was only interested in his battle-hardened side, he would love to have some of her fire right now.

Without hesitating anymore, he opened up his helmet that was now accessible due to the broken Brute armoring and opened his jaws wide and proceeded to take a bite out of the dead body. Instantly, the rancid taste hit him and he quickly puked out the rotting meat in his mouth. However, Issac Clarke was nothing if not persistent. He went on to continue shoveling the dead creatures' meat into his mouth even as he puked. The more he puked, the more he ate. In this way, he made sure that at least some of it made it past his gullet and into the digestive system. The best way for an infection to occur was direct contact with the parasite, and this was way more than direct. This cycle continued until Issac Clarke didn't have the energy within him to force himself to eat anymore. He collapsed beside the half-eaten dead creature and the new puddle of puke right next to it. And as his eyes started to shut from fatigue, he felt the black marker starting to stir harder inside of him.

_It better Buckell up because it was in for a rude awakening!_

"Heh..."

Issac Clarke let out a soft laugh at his bad pun and closed his eyes, never expecting to open them again.

* * *

_**The**_** sheer amount of research that went into this chapter and preparations for future chapters was both maddening and fulfilling. I am starting to like what I have gotten myself into. ****On a side note, I should have probably warned you guys about the force-feeding? that Issac Clarke had to do to complete his plan, but, eh. You guys could probably handle it.**

**Also this is a new record I hit for the most amount of words written in one chapter. More than 5000 words! Could you believe it?**

**Anyways, thank you for giving this story a chance and I will see you in the next chapter!**


	3. Amalgamation

**Kodoku**

_**A **_**recent review ****called attention to the fact that I _could_ potentially make Issac Clarke into an ultimate bio-weapon. That is a feasible idea that I have already considered, but… what good is a weapon without an equally excellent, if not better, user?**

**Ultimately, a weapon does not get to decide whether or not to kill. It is the manifestation of a decision, an imposing of the will, of the user onto the weapon, _just another tool at his disposal._**

**I need to build Issac Clarke's character from the ground-up to make him capable of controlling two _highly_ intelligent parasitic lifeforms, and he still has a long way to go to even be remotely capable of harnessing the power and intellect of over a trillion minds in one body. Not to mention, the ability to alter his body as he so pleases.**

**Something no human in their _right minds _would have the ability of accomplishing or comprehending.**

**But who's to say Issac Clarke needed to be sane?**

* * *

"**Emotions make us human. Denying them makes us beasts."**

**-Victoria Klein**

'_Then what does that say about me?'_

Curiosity.

A strong desire to know or learn something. An unusual or interesting object or fact. That was the definition that a human named, James Gregory Cutter, used to describe Professor Anders when frequently engaging in rituals of the flesh. That was also the emotion that the Proto-Gravemind was currently feeling as it felt movement through the sensitive flesh receptors at the exterior of what the humans called a spaceship. With its' interest piqued, it wondered what could possibly be out there and opted to travel through the hive mind it had created to take a quick look, and what it saw baffled it.

_There was a human out there? _

_An armored human? _

_How did the human even get out there?_

In the view of the many tiny, reformed eyes growing on the sensitive flesh, per the orders of itself, it secretly spied on a solitary figure shaped typically like a male human being but in a peculiar suit that it had never seen before on this ship. The eyes twitched. The suit, if it could even be called that, was covered in bone matter. Literal bone matter of its own species, though warped and changed in shape to fit over the human. _Was that even a suit in the first place!?_ It was confused, for the first time ever since the start of its existence, on why the human being that created the suit didn't just use strong metals like the rest of their kind. _Why go out of __their__ way to create such a __suit__ in the first place?_ Another matter that baffled the Proto-Gravemind was how the human being got out of the space ship in the beginning, all the airlocks that lead to the vast expense of space was shut down by yours truly as they were near the middle of the ship, where the ongoing conflict between its kind and the meager amount of humans was currently raging on. That thus begs the question, how did he escape unnoticed in a hot spot of conflict? And moreover, according to his current trajectory, if he doesn't deter from his current path, it looks to be as if he is crawling back to the middle. From whence he came. Back to the airlocks.

_**Why? To serve what purpose!?**_

What it saw out there did nothing to satiate its curiosity, instead, it intensified the emotion in question.

Luckily, it had a source of information that it could refer to. It traveled back to its main body in the hive mind and with one of its fleshy tentacle, shook awake the sole human entombed within its gooey pink confines. With a muffled groan, James Gregory Cutter woke up to his own personal nightmare. Immediately, he started to struggle within the grips of the Flood flesh growing around him, trying desperately to break free. All the while screaming loudly into the flesh stuffed inside of his mouth, in a vain attempt to attract attention with the muffled noises to seek out aid for himself.

The Proto-Gravemind just_ sighed_ within its hive mind_._

It was used to this sort of thing whenever James Cutter woke up, the human was always desperate to get out of its control. It thought that the human would learn after its many futile attempts to escape but it still continued, where he got his energy from it would never know. It couldn't wait for the time when he finally got integrated into the hive mind, but for now, it would let him be. It didn't want to break him and lose the valuable source of information it had garnered from his mind by assimilating him too quickly, and on top of that, it also needed time to learn. Besides, there was no danger of him breaking out of the tough exterior of its skin and there was not a single one of his species nearby that could save him. Not that he needed to know that. It would let him hope so that he didn't lose himself to the emotion humans called despair, that would make him less fun to assimilate.

Despair, the Proto-Gravemind had learned earlier on in the past when it was just a flood variant, made humans less likely to fight back and more easier to infect as they lost themselves to the negative emotion. But this was something the Proto-Gravemind didn't want. Sure, it made its job easier to take over the spaceship and assimilate the humans, but it was at the cost of its enjoyment. For some odd reason that it couldn't quite fathom, it loved it when the humans fought back. Seeing them try desperately and futilely to drive its own kind back was something that the Proto-Gravemind took primal joy in. Those were the times the humans would be at their best, at their prime in both their distinct traits of intellect and strength. Resisting with all their might against the Proto-Gravemind's many kinds. It would then marvel at what these humans come up with, cunning plans and technologies to drive back its kind.

That was mainly the reason why it chose to capture one James Cutter, captain of this space ship. He was a good captain that had beautiful relationships with all of his crew mates before it yanked him away from them while they were hibernating in the cyro-chamber. It could have ended all of them that day when it stumbled upon the cyro-chamber in its variant form, all of them sleeping peacefully in their respective cells, not a fight in them while they were in this state. But it chose otherwise. And it paid off, paid off in terms of entertainment for the Proto-Gravemind. When the crew of the spaceship woke up, albeit missing one captain, they immediately seethed in anger. At first, the crew recklessly charged at its own kind, desperately fighting with all their might, fueled only by their emotions, to try to save their captain that they knew was still alive and not infected as informed by their ship's A.I.. _Oh how their expressions twisted in many myriad forms of anger!_ It took great joy that day in observing them, occasionally taking part in the fight to revel in their anger. When their unorganized push proved to be futile and only drove them against the wall, they retreated and planned for another day. Professor Anders and the A.I. took the mantle of the commanders that day as seen when it saw them leading many future attacks on its kind. They were the closest to the captain and felt the loss heavily, however, they came out stronger because of it. They improved themselves; improved their strategies, planning and commandeering. All because they were heavily invested in the captain; one physically, the other emotionally.

Nevertheless, it knew to differentiate between work and play and didn't let the other party get too carried away with resisting its own kind. Giving them sufficient hope was one thing, but giving them too much was another matter altogether. A nice side bonus to all the fun the Proto-Gravemind had with the humans was that they turned out more intelligent, something that it could get behind when it finally consumes them into the hive mind to eventually get the end goal of a Gravemind form.

As a wise human once said, 'The mind that opens to a new idea never returns to its original size', pity his older brother from another planet rushed to ate him up. They could have milked him for more intelligent quotes if they were patient.

Onto matters at hand, the Proto-Gravemind halted its thoughts from drifting away in the hive mind and begun to project its past vision and memories of the single human in outer space onto James Cutter. Like a burning brand, the Proto-Gravemind seared the information into the mind of James Cutter. Not giving him much of an option to resist as it cut down the feeble mental block he hastily tried to put up when he realized what was happening. Like all humans, James Cutter was weak to psychic influences and he quickly turned into a screaming mess. It imagines the pain from this experience to James Cutter is like getting shot in the head,_ repeatedly_, without the sweet release of death following swiftly after, until all the information the Proto-Gravemind needs James Cutter to know is absorbed. Once that was done, it inquired him using the hive mind link on who the person was based on the distinct suit he was wearing.

'I don't know…'

That was the _smart_ answer James Cutter chose to gave it after he recovered from the intense sensation of pain wrecking his mind.

The non-proverbial eyes of the Proto-Gravemind narrowed. He knew better than to lie to it. He _should_ know better than to lie to it, in fact, maybe it should teach him again? What happens if he chooses to defy it, if he chooses not to cooperate. It didn't like to break its' current source of information too much but that doesn't mean it wouldn't if the need arises.

_I will give you one more chance…, _it was feeling giving today.

James Cutter's eyes widened and fear coursed through his veins, not missing the underlying threat underneath. _Good, he still remembers,_ the Proto-Gravemind thought to itself. 'Wait! Wait! I am telling you the truth, I really don't kn-**AGHHHH!**', his desperate thoughts were interrupted by the screams of his flailing mind as it was ripped asunder by the Proto-Gravemind's large consciousness being forced into its tiny spaces. _Wrong answer. _James Cutter now only knew pain and blinding whiteness as the Proto-Gravemind barged in and sifted through his memories like books in a library.

_Really, I thought that perhaps punishing you once like this would be enough for you to learn but it seems like you are a glutton for punishment. Now, let's see where have you seen this suit before…_

The Proto-Gravemind flipped through the pages, expecting to get the answer easily as the suit was too distinct to be missed, but what it didn't expect was that it didn't find a single thing related to the person in outer space or the creator of the suit for that matter, even after it had read the entire story of James Cutter's life until now. It couldn't believe it, James Cutter was a captain, an excellent captain, he would have never missed something like this, especially not when it comes to his crew or their equipment. Moreover, he knew from the captain's interactions with Professor Anders that inventors like her usually flaunt their works, trying to get exposure for better funding and work places that can enable inventors to create more of whatever fascinating magic that goes through their heads. _Was he actually telling the truth?_ The Proto-Gravemind was left in a state of disbelief, it reread the books again, hoping to find something,_anything_, that it may have possibly missed. Tracing line after line, highlighting word after word, like this it scanned all the books in James Cutter's library.

Yet again, it found nothing.

_Impossible…__, _it wanted to go through James Cutter memories again for the third time that day but when his screaming reached a higher pitch, the Proto-Gravemind knew it was the signal to stop. It exited his mind and James Cutter forthwith lost consciousness, losing out to the mental strain and pain. It would have to wait for a long time before it got to use its source of information again. The Proto-Gravemind cursed in the hive mind, its act of sifting through the memories of James Cutter brought about no solution to its questions and instead, provided another conundrum. If the person out there wasn't part of the crew, who were they? A renegade? A crew of another ship? Or perhaps…

_**No!**_ It wouldn't let its mind drift to that thought, it wouldn't, it shouldn't…. But like all minds that refuse to think about negative thoughts, the Proto-Gravemind's latched onto that negative possibility it just almost thought of and _pulled_. The image of a green helmet with a yellow tinted visor appeared in the middle of the hive mind.

The Proto-Gravemind screamed in utter_ fea__r._

It swiftly retreated to the far corner of its hive mind, trying its damnedest to get away from that cursed image, even going so far as to put a mental flesh wall up, trying to block the image physically in its mental realm. It didn't care that its act had made the entirety of its own kind sung in fear in correspondence with its own actions, it didn't care that it revealed their positions to the humans, it didn't care about anything at the moment. Anything except the helmet. The _vile_ helmet. It wasn't the helmet that the Proto-Gravemind was scared of, it was the wearer. It just found it easier to take it out on an inanimate object then to think about the wearer. It cursed again. It shouldn't have even mentioned the slightest bit about the wearer, now its' traitorous mind was drifting to the stories it had heard about him.

The Green Charon.

That was what the rest of his species called him. Back when it was establishing itself as the Proto-Gravemind, it had a temporary link with the rest of its' brothers and they used that momentary link to give advice to its new, youngest family member. They gave it many helpful advice and Flood forms that it could use in battle along with its purpose, but they also gave him one warning. _**Never approach the Green Charon**_. That warning was followed by brief images of absolute anarchy in different worlds and in all of them one figure stood out. The figure wore a green suit with the green helmet and in each of the images, he always stood tall among mounting corpses of its kind. From normal flood Human Combat Forms to advanced Pure forms, they all didn't stand a chance against this monster. They were just insects in the way of the true monster that was this human being. It also didn't help that its' brothers told horrific tales of the memories of those that had brief encounters with him and without exception, they always ended tragically. When the link with them was finally cut off after it finished its transformation, it truly felt that the name was befitting of the human.

The Green Charon, the hardworking ferryman of the souls of its kind.

Going out of his way to make sure they died painfully and stayed that way.

The Proto-Gravemind didn't think the person outside the space ship could be him, the armor was too different. But yet, it also remembered that the some of the brief images showed the human wearing different, unique suits of armor before. Who's to say he wouldn't wear one made out of the bones of his own kind? The Proto-Gravemind shivered in the corner of its hive mind at the possibility. If the person was indeed him, it was screwed. There was no going out of this encounter alive, it was just too young, too inexperienced, to even be able to put up much of a resistance, much less a fight against the true monster. It was just born to this world and still haven't even gotten to explore even a smidge of it. It had so many things it wanted to do; it wanted to explore the wide spectrum of feelings, it wanted to see the different species the universe had to offer and more importantly, it wanted to reunite with its brothers. The brief moment when it had contact with the rest of its brothers, it felt a warm and safe feeling exuding from all of them, almost akin to the feeling one gets in a human family. It desired that feeling again very much, especially after it had spent its time alone in the space ship. It was cold here, cold, dark and very alone. And maybe absorbing too many humans without variety in its diet was causing it to adopt their mannerism, but still, it didn't like it, and if its' guesses were true on who the human was, it most likely would end up staying this way. Permanently.

_Snap out of it!_

The Proto-Gravemind shook its hive mind and slapped James Cutter in the face with a tentacle to induce pain onto itself as a distraction. That was too close there, it almost lost itself to the emotion that it so detested, even in humans. All because of a stray thought that fleeted through its mind.

Never the mind, it now had a problem to take care of. From the sensations transmitted by its flesh at the exterior of the spaceship, the human was close to getting to one of the airlocks to get to the middle of the ship. It couldn't allow that, especially with very recent suspicions that arose on the identity of the human. It had to take caution and strike preemptively to prevent the human from getting any aid from its kind or getting a weapon at the middle of the ship. If he was the Green Charon, which the Proto-Gravemind hoped was not the case and prayed to god to not let it be so, he would become an unstoppable killing machine with weapons and allies at his side, if not, will, a little paranoia never killed anybody. Paranoia, in this case, would be a heightened sense of awareness and having the right information. Admittedly, it was lacking the latter, but that problem will be solved not too soon now as it transformed a large tentacle from its own flesh and dragged the human to the inside of the spaceship, to where the Proto-Gravemind had an advantage over the human, its infested territories.

There it laid in ambush, putting forth a single Human Combat Form as bait and a deciding factor on the identity of the human. Meanwhile, more than a dozen of the Human Combat Forms hid inside the darkness of the corridors and the crevices of its flesh, armed and ready as they all turned their pairs of eyes on where the human roughly landed. A little overkill yes, but it all depends on the identity of the human. It fears even this might not be enough if its guesses were to come true. With a keen interest, it observed from the vision of the many pairs of eyes on every slight movement the human made to help it determine his identity faster.

At first, the quick recovery from the landing and combat-readiness of the human from hearing a threat in front of him was startlingly similar to the Green Charon. Then and there it almost ordered the Human Combat Forms to open fire at the human in panic, but luckily for it, or the human, the confused body expression in seeing a Human Combat Form halted its command. The Proto-Gravemind was overjoyed. The Green Charon would never hesitate or show confusion in attacking a Human Combat Form, he detested its kind just as much as they detested him and that hatred would make him never forget about them. Unless of course if the human wasn't him in this case. With jubilation at disproving the worst of its fears, it ordered the hidden Human Combat Forms to stand down and the sole Human Combat Form to eliminate the human to make him easier to infect and join its ranks.

Jubilation turned to trepidation, then to confusion as within minutes, the human rapidly eliminated the Human Combat Form with its own weapon after it failed to take into account another armor underneath the bony carapace, fell to the floor and rose back up to _eat_ said dead Human Combat Form. The small tentacles of the multiple hiding Human Combat Form reared back in confusion as the Proto-Gravemind looked on at the scene in front of it. The squelching sounds followed by the frequent retching of the human rang out in the dead silence of the space ship._ It reckons the meal must taste disgusting…?_ It didn't know what to think. First, the human's decision of going out to space then heading back whence he came, then this, this act of self-aided suicide by consuming its own kind. All of it confused the Proto-Gravemind.

The Proto-Gravemind tried to comprehend what it was seeing. Putting the hundreds of minds absorbed into its being to work, but it proved to be useless, only giving it a giant headache. The combined thoughts of the Proto-Gravemind put forth many theories on the actions of the strange human, but they were just that, theories. Nothing concrete that the Proto-Gravemind could work on as it was severely lacking information on this individual. With nothing to help it, it just shrugged the tentacles of its main body and watched the infestation process, if it couldn't guess his motives, he would do it for it.

With the feasting act of the human the infestation process was surely going to be quicker, it didn't have to wait long now before the assimilation of his memories joined its hive mind. As it sat back and watch the human get infected, it gradually, subconsciously, felt the parasites flowing through the human's bloodstream getting eliminated cell by cell, almost as if it was done deliberately. _Wait __a minu-_

'**_He is MINE!'_**

A shout, no, a loud mental broadcast the Proto-Gravemind quickly identified as it felt the hive mind ringing in pain, suddenly burst forth from the downed human. The mental broadcast was filled with anger and an intention to_hurt_ it as the message burned itself into the hive mind. The sudden psychic attack left the Proto-Gravemind reeling back in shock and pain to its main body, leaving the dozen and more Human Combat Forms hidden in the vicinity of the human to go back to their own base instincts; attacking any living lifeforms. The Human Combat Forms shambled out of their hiding spots and rushed towards the downed human, some firing their battle rifles and some charging headlong, all of it happening at the exact same time as they succumbed to their instincts. The attack was uncoordinated and clumsy at best due to the Proto-Gravemind relinquishing the control of the Human Combat Forms, many front-liners were caught in the friendly fire of their allies in their quest to quickly reach the downed human being, and the Proto-Gravemind even realizing this made no attempt to stop them. This was because it wanted them to eliminate that threat, whatever that was, without it getting close to them. That initial psychic attack was absurdly strong, it had eliminated a quarter of the minds fueling the hive mind in just one mental broadcast, and it made it fear the creature.

Yes, creature. It didn't believe the human-shaped creature sharing the same similarities in biology with a human male could be a human, it believed that something was sharing that human's body, a disguise to bring one's guard down. A masquerader of the human flesh. And it had worked momentarily against the Proto-Gravemind with its psychic capabilities, but it had learn its lesson. It now kept its distance from the creature and lead to nudge all available Flood Infection Forms towards the direction of the downed creatureand relinquished control when nearby. It didn't spare anything when it came to bringing down this creature, bringing its entire flood army to their last known location. _There was another psychic in town and there can only be one. _

Admittedly, it was weaker in psychic powers to the creature after its first rodeo but it was not ashamed to admit that it was going to eliminate the threat with sheer numbers. What it lacked in psychic capabilities, it more than made up for with its large army. To be exact, an army of different flood variants numbering in the thousands. It had three types currently under its belt; the Human Combat Form, the Flood Carriers and the basic Flood Infection Forms. Each providing a different form of lethality in their charge towards the creature. The Human Combat Form had their deadly battle rifles, the Flood Carriers had their overwhelming numbers of Flood Infection Forms stored in their bulbous flesh sacks and the Flood Infection Forms with their ability to infect any living species and flexible three red tentacles. When combined together, they made a formidable wave of monsters. It had one more special type but it was currently experimenting on it and it didn't believe the sheer strength and durability of that type was required against the creature.

What was one creature compared to its army.

It snickered as it remembered a human phrase, "You and what army!". It wished it could say that to the creature to taunt it but too bad it couldn't get close to the creature's psychic influences. The humor was still not lost on it though.

That humor very soon returned to fear.

At first, it started with the deaths of the dozen and more Human Combat Forms it had left behind nearby the downed creature. The fragmented memories of their death painting an alarming picture through the eyes of the Flood Infection Forms embedded in the human bodies as they returned to the hive mind. Through those eyes the Proto-Gravemind saw them charging towards the form, some of the bullets from the battle rifles even hitting the downed creature, and when one of the variant lifted its large bony claw to bring it down upon the creature's body, all hell broke loose. Instantaneously, all the Proto-Gravemind saw was the metallic structure of the ceiling. At first, the Proto-Gravemind was confused, wondering how the view suddenly changed from their targets. It didn't have to wonder long though as through the view of one of the variants that stood to shoot at the furthest back and the one memory that came in the last, it saw the creature deforming its human body into spikes made out of its back skin and hair that pierced through the Human Combat Forms in copious amounts and embedded them into the ceiling. Thereafter, it ripped them apart in half, losing all of their memories to the Proto-Gravemind, and brought their dead bodies to the its still downed form wherein it began to what the Proto-Gravemind can only assume as consuming them as it saw the creature melding their flesh into one form. That one form being the shape of the same human being, though no doubt dense and packed with flood flesh now. It then rose up unnaturally compared to a human being and noticed the still lingering Human Combat Form through unfocused, milky white eyes as it turned its head at an unnatural angle to stare at it. A flash of almond skin tone was all it saw before darkness enveloped it.

The encounter brought about… unsettling revelations to say the least. It now knew the creature had biological manipulation, something on a level far above itself as it showed precise levels of coordination of the spikes and what little it had to work with on the human body. That combined with the fact that it was psychically more powerful than it _and_ it could absorb bio-matter into its being made the Proto-Gravemind's fear of it spike even higher.

The Proto-Gravemind didn't hesitate. It now knew the dire consequences of facing against this creature so it quickly put its hive mind into overdrive. Death was inevitable screamed the many weak human minds, but those voices were vehemently blocked out by the strategic minds tempered by the Great One's form of 'enjoyment'. It had a plan and it needed precious time to complete said plan so the first thing it needed was a temporary distraction. It commanded the rest of the remaining army to retreat and in random directions so as not to give the creature any more biological fuel to no doubt turn into weapons. But even then, it felt them dying one by one in a similar fashion. The more flood variants that died, the faster the rate of deaths became. The fragmented memories were starting to come at an alarming pace to the Proto-Gravemind, so much so that it was unable to process all of them in the manner of their deaths, but it was still able to paint a general picture of what was happening. The creature was streaking here. To where its main body resided. All the while somehow killing the running flood variants along the way.

It believed it was time to use that special type now. It didn't have enough information on how to make it completely whole but even an incomplete version would do against the unstoppable momentum of destruction of the creature. The figurative, temporary brakes to the unstoppable momentum. It didn't believe the special type could end the threat, but it was at its wits end and needed a solution that could buy it some more time to complete the plan.

Its brothers called this type a pure flood form, an amalgamation of purely flood flesh molded into the hardiest variant known to its kind, the Flood Tank Form. This form could withstand plasma grenades and conventional gunfire without breaking a sweat, however, it was tweaked by the Proto-Gravemind into a much larger form and skipped the entire mutation strand of the Stalker Form due to the impending doom coming towards it direction so there was no telling what it could withstand. It just hopes that it would prove to be enough.

The Proto-Gravemind started to pool the outer sensitive flesh into the spaceship that was painstakingly made by it to enable flood flesh, hardened by the heat of the sun. Once all of it reached into the corridor just outside of the command center of the spaceship, where its main body resided, it used its tentacles to shift and mold them into shape. Starting with its legs, it formed them into two chunky forms representing elephant hooves, these legs didn't have any joints and connected to a bony pelvis that was joined together with the entire mid-section of the body of the variant. The mid-section was a bony outer covering that had broad shoulders which reached to each end of the corridor, with two massive hardened spikes as arms. And lastly, it crafted the head made of several flexible tentacles into the creature. The head in this case was meant to restrict the creature's movement to prevent it from moving forward before it could enact its plan. The inner sections of the body of the variant was filled with compressible flood flesh that transferred the loads to the legs of the variant and into the floor. This would allow the variant to endure the speed of the creature's momentum and any damage that may come from blunt force of trying to counter the variant's tough outer shell. This entire process took a long time as molding hardened pure flood flesh proved harder on the tentacles than the Proto-Gravemind first thought, luckily for it, having many minds proved to increase its skill in multi-tasking and this allowed it to continue working on its plan while the tentacles pounded the flesh into shape like mochi.

As the Proto-Gravemind was finishing the final touches on the variant, it felt the corridor leading to command center start shaking and creaking ominously. With hurried tentacle movement, it rushed the job and didn't take the time to appreciate it's creation like it would normally do and retreated back to the command center, closing the door along the way and sealing it tight with flood flesh as best as it could. It felt that it would need however much time it could get at this point.

This feeling wasn't unfounded as moments after the Proto-Gravemind's retreat, there was a loud bang that came outside of the command center. This bang was momentarily followed by another. Then another. Then another. It could almost feel the shock wave coming from the blows happening outside.

The Proto-Gravemind again _prayed_ to whatever deity that may be listening to it for the second time that day. It worked the first time, so there was no harm in trying again and just god wouldn't be enough this time to stop that creature. There was nothing else it could essentially do besides pray and work on its plan. It was blind as far as it concerns on the fight happening just right outside its doorstep and the only time when it will know what happened will be when the Flood Tank Form perish, which it hopes will not be happening any time soon. The banging noises continued right outside for a long while and the Proto-Gravemind had counted them in the hive mind as it worked on the plan. 36 and still going, the counter to its doom. While it was counting, it learned that fear was a pretty good motivator when it comes to getting work done. _It's amazing what fear can do to you when you know death is just awaiting right outside of your home, _thought the Proto-Gravemind as it finished up the last part of its plan.

Just in the nick of time too as the memories of the Flood Tank Form started flooding in.

It didn't look through the memories or review them, it no longer had the time to do such a thing as the door, along with the flood flesh, came flying open, and in came the creature in a shower of dust. The creature was in its human form and surveyed the room it was currently in. It's cloudy eyes locked onto the giant green mass in the center of the room and a terrifying grin spread across its face.

'**Found you!'**

The creature happily singsonged in the hive mind of the Proto-Gravemind and launched itself onto the giant green mass. The creature hugged the giant green mass and assimilated their hands and legs into the green mass, turning and twisting with them in a way that brought intense bouts of pain to the Proto-Gravemind. It's body writhed in pain and struggled to break free of the creature's grasp. It would seem that the creature was torturing it before they went in for the kill but what they didn't know was that they had fallen right into its trap. Coincidentally, right where the Proto-Gravemind wanted them. With a snap, all six tentacles that were holding the giant green mass upright in the center of the room broke off from their respective corners and rapidly wrapped themselves around the green mass and the creature. The creature, now trapped and ensnared, quickly lost their happy demeanor and started to shift their flesh around to get out of the hold they were caught in, only to find that they couldn't manipulate their flesh like before.

'Surprised?', thousands of minds echoed in the head of the creature and they looked around in bewilderment, 'You're not the only one who can mentally broadcast their thoughts.'

'You must be wondering what happened to your amazing abilities, well let me tell you something, absorbing tons and tons of _my_ flood flesh make them as malleable to you, as it is to me! And you just brought yourself closer to the body that is controlling them.'

'**No, no! Let me go, this body is mine! You can't have it!'**

The voice tinged with the same anger and intentions to hurt rang out in the hive mind again, however, this time it had no effect. The hive mind just thrilled along with the voice, after all, they were now part of it. The Proto-Gravemind let loose a tentacle, knowing that the creature can't escape, and used it to slither to a dark area where a human body was half-hidden by the flood flesh. It lifted the body up, bring it close to the green mass and turned the creature around so that they could see James Cutter.

'See this?', For emphasis, the Proto-Gravemind shook James Cutter upside down like a rag-doll, 'Let me give you a lesson on our species, this was the human that once made up my source of information, a captain by the name of James Cutter. _Once._ Until you decided to come along and destroy everything we worked so hard for!'

'So I thought, since you are oh so powerful and great at psychic manipulation, you must have more minds than my hive mind and that means you must be smarter than James Cutter. More filled with knowledge than James Cutter.'

At this, the Proto-Gravemind tapped the creature's head with the one free tentacle while holding James Cutter in a loop. The creature growled.

'You get what I am saying here?'

'**Release me at once!'**, the creature continued to struggle against their bindings, ignoring the Proto-Gravemind in favor of trying to escape.

The Proto-Gravemind was annoyed. Very much so. It seems like the creature didn't understand the position they were in, even when they were clearly trapped and unable to fight back. It seems the creature and James Cutter were the same; they needed to be taught a lesson to understand the futility of resistance in its grasp. It _touched_ the black marker. The creature stilled. It seems even a creature can understand after all.

'**H-How…?'**

'I am glad you asked! Well you see...'

And it went into a spiel. Talking to the creature about how hard it worked on its plan to capture it, how it twisted itself, _changed_ itself to be able to accommodate switching hosts, how they should appreciate what it had done for them at the cost of all of its resources. It babbled on and on, making itself take on the tone of an evil villain found in a movie one of the humans had watched. It found itself loving it, so this was how it felt to have complete victory over it's nemesis and still be able to completely reveal its plan in safety. It could see the appeal.

So much so that it didn't notice the creature was no longer struggling outwards, but inwards. With the ability to control the little amount of human flesh left in their body, they launched the black marker into the giant green mass, essentially launching their consciousness into the hive mind of the Proto-Gravemind.

The Proto-Gravemind didn't notice until it was too late. Now it was their turn to be James Cutter as it fought a losing battle in its hive mind, it's tentacles writhing around in pain.

'_Get out! Stop it!' _it begged, but the creature showed no mercy.

As such, it will show none in return.

The Proto-Gravemind didn't have a back-up plan should it fail, a plan B so to speak, but it had a plan E, a plan to end all plans.

The writhing tentacles stopped their writhing, a final act by their master, and they wrapped around the giant green mass tighter and tighter still while its consciousness wrapped around the creature's in the same manner.

Until finally, everything stopped, both in the inside and outside.

* * *

_**I**_** have no excuse ****to explain my disappearance from FF… ok, maybe I have one, it's not so much an excuse as it is more of a distraction for me. Two months ago, I found a fandom named 'Worm' done by its esteemed author Wildbow and I have been hooked ever since by the story and their fan fiction.** **This had made me deteriorate in my writing skills and go back to when I was just a reader of books and fan fiction and I guess I just lost the interest to write. **

**Until… it came back again and I am back! Temporarily for the time being and there wouldn't be much of a schedule now. Also you might find that the writing quality deteriorates at the end.**

**Please excuse the fickle mind of this author and do enjoy the story.**

**P.S.** **credit where it is due to FilmComicsExplained a YouTube channel that inspired me to take up writing this story yet again and aided me in the biology of the Necromorphs and Floods in their summary videos.**

**P.S.S Almost reaching 7000 words, another new record! Also I might need to edit this post for errors later on.**


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